American Banjo Project phase 1

[George Wunderlich]

For those of you who have not seen the shop here are a few pictures of the work space I will be using.  If you have any questions about what you see please feel free to ask.  Please forgive the modern stuff in the pictures, I also use the space for my daily household repair work. 

Here is the shaping and hole drilling section:

Here is my measuring, chisel, knife, sharpening and scraper section.

Top shelf and right of second shelf is the plane collection.

Varnishes, glues, pigments, resins and rubbing compounds (pumice and rottenstone)

Flattening the walnut neck plank with a 17" wood jack plane

Smoothing the plane marks with a flat bottomed scraper (Stanley 80)

This is an industrial straight edge showing a flat surface.  Over the course of continued leveling (after the neck blank is cut from the plank) there will be a .020" low spot in the center of the neck (about the 7th position) that comes from the 17" plane.  This allows for the vibration of the string without slapping the fingerboard and appears on most all original instruments. 

 More on Wednesday.   

[Trapdoor2]

Great start, George. Looks like you have everything you need! Much neater than my shop...

[George Wunderlich]

If anyone wants the photos in more detail please click the picture and it will come right up.  I am trying to use a fine setting on the camera so there will be plenty of detail.  

trapdoor -  it is NEVER this clean ; ) I cleaned up just for you guys!  Seriously, by the end of the project it will look like a tornado, after each project I reset the shop.  

I think for this project I will make my varnish from scratch so I can detail the method. I have some in the brown bottle with the setiment in the bottom (picture # 4 in the center next to the black metal can) but starting from scratch is always fun.  

[Ed Womack]

Incredible! I've seen videos and pictures of your shop, but never in such intimate detail. Fascinating as always.

[flatfoot johnny]

Ooh im get really excited by this! Makes me feel better to see you using hand planes too, and that im not wasting time by not having the aid of  power tools. Its so much quieter...(i do have a spindle sander though)